Posts Tagged With: taken by storm

As the days get darker and colder (and up here in the Pacific Northwest, those dark days are long), you may feel an urge to hibernate. To keep your spirits up, your blood pumping, and your heart warm, you’ll want hearty stew, cocoa, hot buttered rum, and a pile of audiobooks. Here is a short list of chilly audiobooks that feature adventure, thrills, and romance to keep you warm and sated in your cave!

If you have any cold weather listens, in which wintry holidays don’t play a key role in the plot, please share them in the comments below. I would love to get snowed in with more good stories!

The policewoman got shot and she’s bleeding everywhere. Get someone here in one hour or I’m going to put her out of her misery. An ultimatum that forever changes the lives of police officer Sam Lucas and Dr. Kate Myles. When heavy snowfall isolates the small English village of Birchenlow, a violent robbery shatters the community. Taken as a hostage and stranded with the increasingly desperate criminals, Sam is seriously injured during an ill-fated escape attempt. Already struggling to save the lives of the villagers caught up in the raid, Kate volunteers to walk straight into the lion’s den. Cut off from help, with only each other to rely on, Sam and Kate must find a way to fight the odds and stay alive if the growing attraction between them is to survive. — via Bold Strokes Books

Kellen Ryan has taken the survival skills she learned on the streets and used them to create an elite search-and-rescue operation, as well as the first home she’s known in forever—a sanctuary in Haven, Colorado, high in the Rockies.

A small mountain town was the last place Harvard-educated Dr. Dana Kingston expected to find herself. Still, when she’s offered an opportunity to partner with Kellen’s operation and develop a medical triage center, Dana follows her heart.

Dana falls hard and fast for the enigmatic Kellen. But she quickly realizes Kellen’s heart is as carefully guarded as her past, and breaking through will take time. Except time is the one thing they may not have, because a deadly threat has returned, and this time he plans to finish what he started. — via Bold Strokes Books

When the hunter becomes the hunted…do you trust your instincts or your heart?

A killer for hire, Katarzyna Demetrious has grown weary of her violent and solitary life. Contemplating retirement, she has gone into hiding in her remote bunker home as a blizzard rages outside. But her seclusion is shattered by the appearance of a mysterious stranger, and, with a price tag on her head, Kat is thrust into the most perilous situation she has ever faced. Can she outwit the assassins on her trail? And could the woman she rescues…and is unexpectedly attracted to…be the deadliest of them all? — via Bold Strokes Books

Winter in the Derbyshire Peaks: months of knee-deep snow, short days, and rocketing crime rates. Detective Sanne Jensen is living in self-imposed isolation and quietly falling apart, while Dr. Meg Fielding Sanne’s best friend and occasional lover is struggling to cope with her violent brother, who is back in town and demanding money that she doesn’t have. When the murder of a drug addict is dumped onto Sanne’s already unmanageable caseload, she suspects the death may be the start of something more sinister. But how can she investigate a crime when no one cares about the victim? And how can she stop a killer who has no identity, no motive, and no conscience? — via Bold Strokes Books

At eighteen, Emerson Rosberg was poised to become an Olympic skiing sensation. Growing up in the Adirondack ski town of Lake Henry with a world-renowned ski champion for a father gave her an edge over the competition…until the day she let her ego get the better of her and made a devastating mistake that would cost her any future in the sport. Deciding the only way to heal her shattered dreams was to run as far away from Lake Henry as possible, she settled in Los Angeles, leaving all memories of her previous life far behind.

When her mother dies suddenly, Emerson is forced back to Lake Henry to take care of things, including the sale of The Lakeshore Inn. Her plan to get in and get out of that miserable town as quickly as possible is brought to a screeching halt when Cassie Prescott, the bubbly, friendly owner of a local sporting goods store, gets in the way. Cassie’s still cleaning up the debris from her last relationship, but she’s instantly drawn to Emerson, despite warnings from friends and family alike.

As the cold weather closes in and Emerson and Cassie’s relationship heats up, one question keeps popping up for Emerson: can you really go home again?

Lia Brooks has a broken heart and a burning desire to escape New York City. She decides Provincetown is the perfect winter escape to find some peace and regroup. Alex McKinnon is the pastry chef and proprietor of The Flour Pot Café in the heart of Provincetown. She loves owning her own business and the easy, no-strings-attached relationships that come with living in a gay tourist mecca. When Lia appears in the café, the attraction is immediate. The passion between them promises more than a casual affair, but it’s never that simple. Women from Alex’s past pop up at the most inopportune times. Then there’s Lia’s ex, who brokers deals for a living and is unaccustomed to losing. Will Alex and Lia be able to overcome the roadblocks and find a happily ever after? — via Bold Strokes Books

Lives depend on two women when a train derails high in the remote Alps, but an unforgiving mountain, avalanches, crevasses, and other perils stand between them and safety. Associated Press reporter Hudson Mead is an extreme skiing enthusiast who has covered war zones and natural disasters during her long and distinguished career, but nothing could have prepared her for the challenges she’ll face when the snow train she’s riding is decimated by a massive avalanche. Librarian Steffi Graham, on her first trip abroad, is anxious to hone her rock-climbing skills in a new and unfamiliar terrain of ice and snow. She gets much more than she bargained for when her talents put her on the team that goes for help. As the two strangers struggle to reach civilization, they must compromise and learn to trust each other, a task that may be nearly as difficult as the journey itself. — via Bold Strokes Books

Jennifer Kincaid, on her way to a writer’s workshop in the Colorado mountain town of Lake City, gets lost and is stranded by an avalanche. Catherine Ryan-Barrett, running from the fame and fortune of her family name, wants nothing more to spend the winter alone and sequestered in her high mountain cabin. She is not prepared for a party crasher. After spending two months together, they form an unlikely friendship that deepens even further. But after the spring thaw, Jen leaves and returns to her life in Santa Fe and to the man who wants to marry her. All she knows of the woman who rescued her is her name… Ryan. — via Bella Books

I’m just a tad late in posting all of the glorious audiobooks that I listened to in 2016 (though they did make it into my year-end-stravaganza posting). Compared with 2015, there was an aural explosion! I think this in part because I had more options as far as buying and borrowing audiobooks (Overdrive, OneClick Digital, Audible). I’ve also spent more time perusing audiobook reviews on sites such as AudioFile Magazine and participating in a fantastic Facebook group, Lesbian Audiobooks.

Now when I find an interesting book, I ask myself “is there an audiobook version?” Publishers seem to produce more and more audiobook versions these days, as opposed to limiting the production to “big” names and blockbuster series. What a time to be a listener!

As for 2017? Well, I’ve already listened to a contemporary romance and a fantasy-adventure! My Audible wishlist is long and getting longer. What LGBT+ fiction and/or non-fiction audiobooks did you listen to last year?

The book covers are linked to either a review I posted or to a related external site (like Overdrive, AudioFile, publishers, etc.).

As soon as June rolls around, I get the itch to pack up my gear and go camping or drive aimlessly down random highways. Most of the time, though, I can rely on my never-ending stash of books to satisfy my craving for adventure. I have paperback books squirreled away in my car for trips on the ferry; books on my smartphone for long queues; audiobooks on my Kindle Fire for my lengthy commute; and various books on my Nook for any time, any place. Right now I’m looking to satisfy my wanderlust vicariously via stories featuring fun road trips and camping. Not quite a substitute, but a good supply of fun, outdoorsy-based reads is worth is its weight in gasoline.

There are a lot of engrossing stories out there and it would take me much longer than the length of this post to list them all. I’ve chosen instead to highlight a few that I’m currently reading.

Robin Alexander’sThe Trip is an entertaining story about a crazy making family road trip. Jill Savoy, is wrangled into a weeks long road trip by her grandmother and her grandmother’s best friend. Charged with maneuvering Sally, the mammoth RV and apple of her father’s eye, she tries to retain her sanity in the face of blatant matchmaking, raucous senior citizens, and surprise detours.

Meghan O’Brien’sInfinite Loop, on the other hand, is a road trip prompted by personal tragedy. The tale’s leading ladies, Regan O’Riley and Mel Raines, form an instant connection at a straight bar. Soon after meeting, a close friend of Mel’s is shot and the world turns upside down. Road trips can bring out all sides of a person and provide plenty of opportunities for Murphy’s Law to manifest.

Camptown Ladies by Mari SanGiovanni continues the zany adventures of the Santora clan as they take on a seemingly Sisyphean task of sprucing up a dilapidated campground. They’re a tight knit bunch, so when something goes awry, there’s sure to be more than one pair of hands involved.

When the idea for this post germinated, I struggled to find novels that featured the great outdoors as the primary backdrop, but no as a setting for suspense novels or thrillers or crime dramas.A pile of stories with heart melting romance, raucous adventure, and friends for life, awaits you! Enjoy!

Part of Pop Sugar’s 2016 reading challenge is to read a book starring a protagonist who shares your profession. Librarians face a lot of stereotypes. We’re often shown transforming from prudish spinsters to sexy temptresses, but rarely anything in between or multidimensional. It can be a cringe-inducing experience to watch a movie or reading a book with a cardboard cut-out of a librarian stamping books, shushing kids, or somehow knowingeverything. Most people I’ve met who view librarians this way haven’t set foot in a library in years, or read/watched much online about how librarians currently engage their communities. Do you find yourself nitpicking a character whose profession you share?

That being said, I’m searching for audiobooks featuring lesbian librarians. I was browsing Audible this morning (because the avalanche of books I’m reading somehow just isn’t enough ^^) and found a handful to get me started. The Lesbrarian Books list on Goodreads gave me a helpful boost, though sadly not all of the books listed have audiobook versions.